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A Doll's House
Students dive into the novel A Doll's House, exploring this social critique of middle-class Victorian society including issues of gender roles, freedom, and appearance versus reality. Students also investigate the genre of dramatic realism.
ELA
Unit 7
12th Grade
This unit has been archived. To view our updated curriculum, visit our 12th Grade English course.
Unit Summary
Please Note: This unit currently only contains free Fishtank features. In January 2025, we will begin releasing a new set of 12th Grade units, with the full scope of Fishtank Plus resources and features.
Originally written and performed in Norway in 1879, A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, shocked nineteenth-century audiences with its critique of the treatment of women in Victorian society. Ibsen’s play has gone on to withstand the test of time, continuing to be one of the most widely performed plays in the world.
In this unit, students will delve into Ibsen’s social critique of his era by exploring the norms and values of middle-class Victorian society. Issues of gender roles and freedom will be a particular focus. The social norms of Victorian society that kept women in the sphere of domesticity are questioned by Ibsen through his portrayal of Nora and the other characters of the play. In addition, he focuses on developing the theme of appearances versus reality in Victorian society through the microcosm of Helmer and Nora’s lives. Students will read this text with these related and interwoven themes in mind, analyzing how Ibsen uses one to develop the other.
In addition to analyzing A Doll’s House as social commentary, students will investigate the genre of dramatic realism that many credit Ibsen with creating through this and others of his plays. Through his use of the format of “the well-made play” common in the nineteenth century and his rejection of the use of verse form, Ibsen created a new genre that has come to be known as realistic drama. In fact, it is the genre that is most common in the plays, television shows, and movies of our own time.
This unit plan is compact and dense, relying on students doing at least some of the reading outside of school. Teachers should use their judgment and adjust the pacing to move more slowly if necessary.
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Texts and Materials
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Core Materials
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Play: A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
Supporting Materials
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Video: “The Victorians: Home Sweet Home” (BBC)
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Article: “Gender Roles in the 19th Century” by Kathryn Hughes (British Library)
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Article: “Victorian Sexualities” by Holly Furneaux (British Library)
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Article: “Henrik Ibsen Biography” by Biography.com Editors (A&E Television Networks)
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Book: Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders (W.W. Norton, reprint edition, 2005)
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Book: Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen
Assessment
These assessments accompany Unit 7 and should be given on the days suggested in the Lesson Map. Additionally, there are formative and creative assessments integrated into the unit to prepare students for the Performance Task.
Content Assessment
The Content Assessment tests students' ability to read a "cold" or unfamiliar passage and answer multiple choice and short answer questions. Additionally, a longer writing prompt pushes students to synthesize unit content knowledge or unit essential questions in writing. The Content Assessment should be used as the primary assessment because it shows mastery of unit content knowledge and standards.
Unit Prep
Intellectual Prep
Intellectual Prep for English Lessons
- Read and annotate the play and this unit plan.
- Read the following article on A Doll’s House as a well-made play: A Well-Made Doll's House: The Influence of Eugene Scribe on the Art of Henrik Ibsen on Screentakes.
- Read the paired works of fiction and nonfiction.
Intellectual Prep for AP Projects
- Read and annotate the Supplementary AP Projects.
- Decide the pacing appropriate for your students. These projects can be integrated into the reading of A Doll's House or completed at the conclusion of the reading of the novel.
- Select a print or online style guide that students will use to develop their own writing skills and style. See the following articles for ideas:
- AP English Language and Composition: Grammar Web Guide by CollegeBoard
- AP English Language and Composition: The Concept of Style by CollegeBoard
- Review the basics of rhetorical analysis by reading What Do Students Need to Know About Rhetoric? by Hepzibah Roskelly.
- Read the CollegeBoard AP English Language and Composition 2016 Scoring Guidelines for FRQ 3.
- Read the CollegeBoard 2017 AP English Language and Composition Sample Student Responses and Scoring Commentary for FRQ 1.
- Read the Chief Reader Report on Student Responses: 2017 AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions.
- Depending upon your level of familiarity with the CollegeBoard AP English Language and Composition exam, you may wish to spend more time exploring other resources on the College Board AP English Language and Composition Course website.
Essential Questions
- Gender Roles: How does the oppression of women impact everyone in a society? Can one group be truly free when others are kept down?
- Appearances vs. Reality: What is the danger in keeping up appearances that mask reality? For an individual? For a society?
Writing Focus Areas
The writing in this unit is designed to give students practice with the type of writing and thinking they might be expected to do on the AP English Language and Composition Exam for Free Response Question 3. Students will craft an argument and use some aspect of A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen as evidence to support their own unique argument.
Spiraling Literary Analysis Writing Focus Area
- Thesis: Compelling and sophisticated
- Analysis: Demonstrates nuanced logic and independent thinking
- Cohesion: Strategically uses transitions or connecting words to clarify relationship to help reader follow argument/topic
Related Teacher Tools:
Vocabulary
Literary Terms
setting, characterization, realism, dramatic irony, analogy, allegory, realism, Romanticism, conflict, theme, motif, juxtaposition, “well-made play” formula, spiritual awakening, double entendre, trope (Inside the Victorian Home, p. 215)
Roots and Affixes
ami- (amicably), venge- (vengeance)
Text-based
Note: hypocrisy (iii), sentimental (iii), romanticism (iii), naivete (iii)
Act 1: extravagantly (1, 3), economize (2), incredulously (7), obliged (9), contemptuously (11), imprudent (11), zealously (15), unassailable (20), dissimulation (27), deprave (28)
Act 2: disheveled (29), tactless (32, 34), prevaricate (32), rogue (33), obstinacy (34), scurrilous (34), incubus (35), vengeance (36), inexorable (38), amicably (43), expedient (43), folly (44)
Act 3: jilt (52), prudently (52), capricious (56), apparition (56), unscrupulous (62), consternation (64), heedless (70), wedlock (72)
Other: Domesticity (Inside the Victorian Home)
Idioms and Cultural References
“as a matter of course…” (5), plucky (6), appointment (20), rubbish (29), tarantella (31), consumption (31), “Capri – maiden” (56)
Content Knowledge and Connections
- Victorian Era
- Realism/Realistic drama
- Victorian womanhood
Previous Fishtank ELA Connections
- The Glass Menagerie in 11th Grade ELA - The Glass Menagerie is also a realistic drama and deals with themes of womanhood and gender.
- Plays by Shakespeare that students have read serve as examples of drama written in verse, which is an important contrast to the realistic drama of Ibsen.
Future Fishtank ELA Connections
- While this play is set in the Victorian era and deals specifically with issues of gender and women’s rights in the Victorian period, it is also a story of human rights. Drawing parallels to oppression and liberation as depicted in other works students have read will deepen their understanding of the play and of future works.
Lesson Map
AP Projects
These projects are optional and serve as a great way to enrich students' experience and deepen their content knowledge in this unit. If teachers have flex days in their schedules, we strongly recommend any of the below options.
4 days
(PROCESS)
For this project, we ask students to debate and write a response to a question from the released 2017 AP English Language and Composition Exam. We are unable to reproduce the content here; however, teachers can find the question at the link below.
2017 AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions (page 2)
(ON DEMAND)
As the internet and social media change how people share and receive information about events in their local communities and around the globe, there has been much debate about the role of newspapers in the modern age. Some question the need for their existence when information is so readily available, while others argue that the abundance of news from sources of questionable reliability are exactly why newspapers need to be kept alive.
Carefully read each of the following three sources. Then, synthesize at least two of the sources and incorporate them into a well-written essay in which you develop your position on the role, if any, of newspapers in the modern era.
Your argument should be the focus of your essay. Use the sources to develop your argument and explain your reasoning for it. Avoid merely summarizing the sources and indicate clearly which source you are drawing from. You may cite your sources using A, B, C, or the description in parentheses.
Source A (chart): Number of daily newspapers in the United States from 1970 to 2016 by Statista
Source B (Pew survey): How People Learn About Their Local Community: Part 3: The role of newspapers by the Pew Research Center
Source C (editorial): Newspapers evolving in digital era from the Daily Herald
5 days
(PROCESS)
For this project, we ask students to debate and write a response to a question from the released 2017 AP English Language and Composition Exam. We are unable to reproduce the content here; however, teachers can find the question at the link below.
AP English Language and Composition 2016 Free-Response Questions (page 12)
Common Core Standards
Core Standards
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